taunted the Redeemer as a Sabbath-breaker and a winebibber?" It required, then, merely the legislation of these men, good and useful in many other respects as they may have been, to complete the substitution of the Jewish conception of the Sabbath for the traditional conception of the christian Sunday. The triumph was complete; but it has been declared that it was gained in spite of the reiterated declarations of Luther and Calvin. So effectually, however, did the Puritans do their work, that until this day their way of looking at Sunday has remained rooted in the minds of the English and Americans. For not even was the extravagant reaction under Charles II. sufficient to bring back the old-time spirit which had been extinguished with such zeal; and even to-day one sees on all sides in England the traces of Puritan influence. On Sundays, after church service, the people usually sit about their houses or clubs, talking or smoking. Almost everybody goes to church as a matter of course. As a rule, however, one will find most places of amusement and recreation closed on Sunday, although of late there is a very noticeable tendency to open such institutions as libraries and art galleries, while Sunday concerts are not nearly so rare nowadays as formerly. Reference might also be made to an old custom of London which permits the opening of the public houses for two hours on Sunday after the conclusion of church service.

The American Sunday is the English Sunday in a perhaps exaggerated form. Several influences are now at work, however, which are affecting seriously the traditional conceptions of the day. Not the least powerful agency in this change is the reorganization of modern industries and the far-reaching necessities it has given rise to. So interdependent have modern communities become that it is well-nigh impossible to dispense entirely with Sunday trains, Sunday newspapers. Sunday telegraphic dispatches, and Sunday telephones. Nor has the influence of foreign immigration been slight. As Bishop Potter pointed out in his famous argument in favor of opening the World's Fair at Chicago

on Sunday, this influence is especially strong in our larger towns. A third influence in the de-sabbatizing of Sunday, is the change of public sentiment generally in regard to the daya sentiment whose origin it is difficult to trace, but perhaps largely growing out of each of the above causes, to which might be added the influence of the ever-increasing annual exodus to Europe. The American who spends some time in Europe usually brings back with him impressions gained abroad, and these often tell against a rigid observance of Sunday.

As everybody knows, most of the colonies had very strict Sunday laws upon their statute books. Owing to the celebrated "Blue Laws" forgeries of the Reverend Samuel Peters, Connecticut Sunday legislation has acquired a particularly unenviable reputation; but Sunday legislation was confined to no section of the country, although its rigor doubtless varied with the religious temperament and convictions of the colonists.

Reference has already been made to the decline of the American Sunday; but it is worthy of remark that in the rural portions of the United States the old ways are still adhered to. Sunday there is often about as disagreeable and tedious a day as one could desire. In communities like New Orleans, San Francisco, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee, however, where foreign influence notably that of the French and Germans — is perhaps most strongly felt, the continental ideas largely prevail. On the whole, however, the attitude assumed by Congress in the matter of closing the World's Fair on Sunday may be said to have fairly reflected the sentiment of the American people. Mr. Bryce, for example, has pointed out the fact that most if not all the States have laws upon their statute books which prohibit all kinds of work on Sunday save such as necessity and charity require. Various kinds of amusement and recreation, moreover, are not infrequently prohibited. Here, for example, are the sections of the code of Tennessee bearing on this subject:

SECTION 2,289. If any merchant, artificer, tradesman, farmer, or other person, shall be guilty of exercising any of the common avocations of life, or causing or permitting the same to be done by his children, or servants, acts of real necessity or charity excepted, on Sunday, he shall, on due conviction thereof, before any justice of the peace of the county, forfeit and pay three dollars, one-half to the person who will sue for the same, and the other half for the use of the county.

SECTION 2,290. Any person who shall hunt, fish, or play at any game of sport, or be drunk on Sunday, as aforesaid, shall be subject to the same proceedings and liable to the same penalties as those who work on the Sabbath.

It is true a large part of American Sunday legislation remains practically a dead letter; but unless repealed the statutes are still operative. And here and there the enforcement of even the more humane provisions of the law very nearly approaches a hardship, as witness the case of the sect known as the Seventh Day Baptists, several of whose members were recently imprisoned in Tennessee, after having refused to pay the fine imposed upon them for working on Sunday. A glaring inconsistency in the enforcement of such a law is furnished by the failure to convict a band of ruffians in the same State who had lynched a party of innocent and helpless negroes accused of violating the property rights of some farmers. In the matter of Sunday observancé, moreover, public opinion not infrequently enforces a statute which the officers of the law would perhaps rather ignore. In many parts of the United States, for example, it is considered "bad form " to go riding or driving on Sunday, and a Sunday row or sail, particularly if followed by some distressing casualty, often furnishes the occasion for more or less uncharitable sermons on the evils of Sabbath-breaking."

The more one examines the ground on which American Sunday legislation is based the more irresistible becomes the conclusion that it is a physical and moral rather than a religious ground. Indeed, with our theories of government such statutes could have no other basis. The laws, therefore, simply create a holiday, and their constitutionality has been upheld by the highest court in the land. This is

plain enough. While, therefore, we may justify a statute which affords the toiler in shop and mill an opportunity for physical and moral expansion by protecting him alike from his own selfishness and that of his employer, it is impossible to view with approval those laws which practically prevent a man from fully enjoying his day of rest. The question of Sunday legislation seems, therefore, to resolve itself into the broader one of the proper mode of observing the day. This is a question each individual should be allowed to answer for himself. Our government has nothing to do with the subject of religion as religion. Nor, as has been well said, is Christianity a part of the law of the land in the sense that its teachings as such will be enforced by our courts. That would, of course, be no less impossible than undesirable. Religion appeals to the inner life of man; in other words, to his conscience; and it would, according to our theories of government, be both idle and unconstitutional to legislate in such a matter. And even where the State can interfere, the ground is a very delicate one, for it s quite possible for the majority to tyrannize over the minority. Nor is it possible to lay down any general rule for uidance in the matter. Each community should enjoy the right to decide the question for itself, with a due regard to the conflicting views of its several members. Of course,

where a law exists, it ought to be enforced, as Mr. Roosevelt is doing it in New York, and if the statute is obnoxious, the remedy is with the public. But indications are not wanting which point to a freer Sunday. We have outgrown the idea that people can be made good by legislation; and if the forces to which are committed, for the most part, the care of regenerating man's spiritual nature are unable to carry on the struggle without the intervention of the secular arm, they are in a bad way: no human law can help them. For the law-making power that invades the domain of conscience is blind to the teachings of history and is sowing the seeds of that contempt for the law which ripens into anarchy.

B. J. RAMAGE.

A MANUAL OF GERMAN LITERATURE.'

There are two kinds of literary manuals; one, in which we have a mere historical outline, a mass of names, dates, and facts, which, like statistics, it would be more profitable to carry on a slip of paper in one's vest pocket for ready reference than to spend hours of hard work in memorizing merely to forget them in less time than it took to acquire them; the other, which deals only with the great names and works in literature and with the causes that have fostered their production, which is written for the general reader as well as student, and is a book that one likes to have as a companion and friend to give pleasure and to call up past associations. It is almost needless to say to readers of this REVIEW that Dr. Wells's book belongs preeminently to the second class of manuals here described. It is not a book for specialists or for those who intend to investigate German literature to any great extent, but it is a popular account, in a pleasing and forcible style, of the master works of a great modern literature. One will look in vain for the large catalogue of names usually found in our school literatures, but one will find all that it is needful for a foreigner of culture to know about German writers and a peculiarly interesting and instructive sketch of the growth of German literature in its inseparable and necessary connection with the political history of the German people.

The book begins with a chapter on "Origins ", but as might be expected from what has been said above, the early portion of the literature is rapidly reviewed. We are first given a brief but clear sketch of the early conditions of German life and its effects upon literature, which was at that time distinctly national, but soon became catholic. The original outburst of song consequent upon the victorious

'Modern German Literature. By Benjamin W. Wells, Ph.D. Boston:

Roberts Brothers.